Curatorial workshops

I recently attented this brilliant workshop on curatorial studies at VANSA in Cape Town this month. Since am currently a curatorial intern, this was a great opportunity for me to expand my understanding of curating.

The Workshop was great and very enlightening in terms of how serious curatorial practices are being considered today. We got into some details of how Curatorial practices have evolved throughout the course of Art history - something that has not been focused on (or rather has not been considered) when studying Art history.

The first day of workshops we had an introductory session where we introduced ourselves to Claudia as well as each other. Claudia gave us a task before the workshops to read essays that we had to present on the first day to the rest of the group. The essays were based on curating and the history behind it.

My presentation was based on the roles and relationship between the artists and the curator. My presentation was based on Rainer Ganahl's essay, “when attitudes become - curating" that is also an exhibition that was inspired by the Jet revolution. The 747 jet was born out of the explosion of the popularity of air travel in the 1960's.The context in which the art was produced was that of a mobile society. With a mobile society also came the notion of multitasking were we see artists who collect, curate, write and deal in art. We also see curators who make art and reflect on artistic production as writers and art historians. There is more fluidity between what is seen as the role of the artists and that of a curator. This is the current period of deskilling and artistic crowdsourcing of information.

Now curating has become institutionalised, turning into a discipline that is taught academically. For Ganahl, the recipe for a good curator is an elixir located in the persons themselves. It is something that comes from within. It is the basic understanding of who we are, where we come from how we living, what we want and what we can do. Ganahl continues to say that curators should learn to distinguish between motivations or interest that are intrinsic and logical and those that are not. It is about figuring out what kind of art they would like to defend, for whom, and why. They also have to find inventive ways to put their vision respectively into practice without total exploration of the artists or anybody else involved in the making of a show

The second day of workshops Claudia discussed her Curatorial practices and the works she exhibited. We presented our curatorial proposes in which we got feedback from Claudia as well as possible ideas from the workshop group. My understanding of curatorial practices was broadened in terms of the role and the tasks that the Curator takes on. For example, I think most of us found the Budget proposal a bit challenging in that we had ideas and concepts of how we wanted our exhibitions curated yet our budgets proved to be a bit of a challenge. This also stems from the fact that most of us came from institutions where curatorial practices were unheard of.

In the end, it was a worthwhile experince which we had this great opportunity -some of us for the first time – to gain information on what curatorial practices are all about. We were also fortunate enough to have had Claudia as our facilitator.